Spiral
by Guy Fawkes
Summary: When Ron meets with an untimely end, Harry is sent into a spiral of guilt that only one man can save him from. Who else knows what it's like to be responsible for your best friend's death? A Sirius story.
1. Death of a Weasley

_Spiral_

A/N: Well, having almost completely abandoned the Amorus Imedius Potion for lack of inspiration, I have turned to my promised Siriusfic. I now risk my reputation by attempting to write something of gravity. If you think this fic is going to be like any old "You-Know-Who attempts to take over Hogwarts" fic, think again. The action sequence will have firmly faded out by the second chapter, and the majority of this story will in fact take place inside of Harry's mind. If you're into surreal, this is the story for you. Thank you to Rachel, my beta-reader who is never afraid to be skeptical. 

Disclaimer: All of the following characters, names, places and concepts are property of JK Rowling, much as that irks me. 

_Part One: Death of a Weasley_

"Well," said Sirius, affecting a posture of calmness and repose in the chair before Dumbledore's desk, "I can't say I'm sure it's so much of a loss, really. Mundungus isn't exactly . . . what he used to be." 

It was late afternoon on a Tuesday and Sirius was doing what he'd been doing every Tuesday since last June: appearing before Hogwarts Headmaster and brigadier-general of the forces of good to make his reports on how "rounding up the old crowd" was going. Unfortunately, it was not going very well. The meetings were getting shorter and shorter, and with any luck Sirius would be out of here in time to catch Harry before he had to leave. 

"Mundungus Fletcher was one of the best Ministry insiders we ever had, Sirius," said Dumbledore, whose voice was carefully measured to cover its evident strain. Over the past eleven months Dumbledore's voice had lost its ability to remain calm and cheerful in all circumstances. He was standing near one of the tall, thin windows of his office, frowning slightly as he peered down at the grounds. "A connection like his in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement is priceless." 

Sirius nodded his agreement, but, unable to resist, he doggedly added, "Arthur Weasley said Mundungus nearly got called up on charges of fraud two years ago for his Quidditch World Cup claims. I don't think he has the level of credibility we need." 

"We haven't got time to worry about _levels_, Sirius. Anything he has to offer our cause is priceless." Dumbledore sighed heavily, his pale blue eyes made gray by the reflection of the dark sky outdoors, his frown deepening. "If Mundungus isn't in some way affiliated with our cause, then he has every reason to be affiliated with those against us." 

Sirius stood, feeling his bones creak. He did not spend a great deal of time in cushioned chairs, and they no longer agreed with his body. Moving to stand next to Dumbledore, he stared down at the curiously empty school grounds. It must be even colder than he thought, for no one to be outside this time of day. He sighed. 

"Even if he was with us, Dumbledore, he'd be more of a target—" 

Their budding argument was cut short as the door to Dumbledore's office burst open. Startled, Sirius swiveled in his chair to see Minerva McGonagall standing in the doorway, breathing hard, her face white as chalk. 

Dumbledore was across his office immediately, his form nearly blurring with the suddenness of the movement. "What is it, Minerva?" 

"There's been an attack on the grounds, Albus." 

"The Death Eaters?" 

Dumbledore was already halfway down the stairs. Sirius ran to keep up with his surprising speed while Professor McGonagall led them in the direction of the hospital wing. His gut was clenched in fear. Please, don't let it be Harry, he thought. But who else would it be? 

"Potter and Weasley," he heard McGonagall say lowly, and he felt his heart drop into his shoes. As they neared the hospital wing, a stunned crowd of silent students parted to let the Headmaster through. Sirius barely had time to register the fact that he was out in public without any sort of disguise before he was inside the doors of the ward, with the world shut out behind him. 

"_Harry_," he cried, rushing forward to embrace the boy. Harry was on his feet, apparently unharmed, but he didn't return the embrace. "What happened?" Sirius looked at Harry, judged him unwilling to speak, and turned immediately to Madam Pomfrey, who was flitting around the two of them, trying to find an opening to examine her patient. "Where's Ron?" 

There was a long silence, broken only when, to Sirius's horror, Professor McGonagall began to weep. Dumbledore's face was creased with sorrow, and he put a hand on her arm. "Where did this happen?" he asked Madam Pomfrey, who on closer inspection looked puffy-eyed as well. 

"By the lake," she answered, her voice wavering. 

"Who is down there now?" 

"Professor Snape, I believe." 

Dumbledore cast one glance at Harry, seemed to come to a swift conclusion, and then said, "We must be getting down there. If you'll excuse us, Sirius." 

And they walked back out the door, Professor McGonagall clinging to Dumbledore for support as her sobs echoed off the walls. 

Sirius turned back to Harry, who was standing in the same position he'd been in since Sirius had arrived. He gathered him up in his arms again, not caring if he was injuring a fifteen-year-old boy's pride. "Are you all right?" 

But Harry didn't respond. Sirius stepped back, holding him at arm's length. "Harry?" 

Madam Pomfrey, used to Sirius jealously guarding his loved ones in her ward by now, saw her opportunity to care for the living and swooped in, crowding him away. She led Harry to one of the beds, attempted to coax him for a few minutes into exchanging his school robes for pajamas, but eventually gave up and settled him in garbed as he was. Sirius moved to his bedside, looking down at him, and what he saw there frightened him: Harry was staring straight ahead, his eyes fixed, his face expressionless. 

"Harry?" he asked again. 

No response. 

The silence was shattered as the door of the hospital wing opened and Sirius turned to see Hermione enter the room. Her pale face was drawn, her body somehow diminished, making her seem smaller and thinner than usual. Of all the people that Sirius would have thought would dissolve into hysterics at the death of a close friend, Hermione topped the list, but her eyes were dry. She crossed the room to Sirius without meeting his gaze, looked down at Harry for a moment, then threw herself into a chair near his bed and stared at the floor. 

For a while there was no sound in the hospital wing except for Madam Pomfrey's low murmur to herself as she checked over Harry, frowning as she removed his glasses and lifted his eyelids, shining the light from the tip of her wand into his eyes. She moved the wand up and down his entire body before standing up, looking perplexed, and crossing to the other side of the room. 

Sirius got up as well, to follow her and demand in as low a voice as he could manage what was the matter with his godson, when the room itself rocked with the force of a huge explosion. Madam Pomfrey shrieked as the floor groaned beneath their feet and vials filled with herbs and potions crashed to the floor. Sirius rushed to the small window beside Harry's bed to stare into the darkness, Hermione beside him. 

There, ribboned across the night sky, was what looked like thin, gleaming purple netting, sparkling as if made from a million tiny points of light. It was swaying and shivering as the echoes of the explosion pounded against it. Hermione made a small, frightened noise, and Sirius saw that behind the deadened look in her eyes there was a dawning horror. 

"The wards," she whispered. 


	2. Unto the Breach

_Spiral_

A/N: I decided to put part two up right quick, since the first part doesn't make a whole lot of sense on its own. Now we're getting to the real point of the story, i.e. Sirius chasing Harry around this guilt spiral in hopes of becoming his psychoanalyst. ::grin:: Thank you to everyone who reviewed.

Disclaimer: All of the following characters, names, places and concepts are property of JK Rowling, much as that irks me. 

_Part Two: Unto the Breach_

The next few hours passed in a haze for Sirius. He sat slumped in the chair next to Harry's bed, vaguely aware of masses of students tramping through the halls, presumably to stay together in the Great Hall during the attack. The silent, blank pair of Fred and George Weasley had appeared about an hour after the initial attack had occurred to take a silent, blank Hermione with the rest of the Gryffindors to safety. Outside of the tiny window he could see the woven purple stars that were Hogwarts' only defenses against invasion glowing in the sky, vibrating as they took hit after hit. The air was filled with crashes and rumblings, but Sirius stayed where he was. Madam Pomfrey had long since given up on Harry, reporting to him in a low voice that she could find nothing wrong with him, and all Sirius could really focus on was the endless depth in the translucent green eyes before him. 

Then Dumbledore was back, somehow; Sirius hadn't heard him enter the ward, and it was some time before he realized that Dumbledore was calling his name. His eyes traveled up the purple robes of the Headmaster, taking in his grayish skin and flat, tired eyes. He was positively haggard, and for the first time in a while Sirius noticed how truly _old_ Dumbledore was—could he be slipping? How could he have missed an attack on one of his own students . . . again? 

"If I could have a word with you," Dumbledore said, nodding to an empty corner of the ward. His mind clearing, Sirius stood up and followed him. 

In a low voice, the Headmaster said, "The Death Eaters are attacking the wards that protect the school from Apparition. They've surrounded the castle." 

"What is the Ministry doing, sir?" 

"Nothing, as of right now." 

Sirius was taken aback. "Why not?" 

"The Apparition wards prevent them from getting within a kilometer of the school. Any work they do against the Death Eaters must be from outside the wards. It will take them several hours to amass the resources to make an attack on the number of Death Eaters currently outside the grounds." 

"How long will the wards hold?" 

Dumbledore's face clouded, expression becoming indistinct. Instead of answering, he turned away from Sirius, his eyes falling on Harry. "He hasn't regained consciousness?" 

"No," replied Sirius, suspicious of the change in topic. He barked a strange, high-pitched laugh that sounded strange to his own ears. "At least he'll have to sit this adventure out." 

Dumbledore said nothing, but turned to fix his incisive blue gaze on Sirius gravely. There was a silence between them that stretched his heart even as it stretched in time, and Sirius knew from the look on Dumbledore's face that Harry wouldn't be sitting this one out after all. 

As seconds became minutes, Sirius searched for his voice. Finding it, he rasped, "What's the matter with him?" 

"Nothing," the Headmaster replied. 

"There's _something_ wrong with him, he won't talk to anyone!" Sirius could hear his voice rising higher and higher but did not care. "He won't talk to _me!_" 

"Sirius," Dumbledore said urgently, and there was no indistinctness in his eyes now. They were burning, focused. Gone were all the strange inconsistencies of Dumbledore's earlier days, gone were the idle tones, the irrelevant statements. He was the general. "It is my believe that Harry has entered a torture of his own devising. He's done this to himself, out of guilt over Mr. Weasley's death. But we cannot afford to lose him at a time like this!" 

"_Why?_" It was the question that woke him up at night. Why Harry? What did he have to do with all this? 

"In a few short hours the wards will be destroyed. If Harry is not awake then—if he has not come back to his senses—" Dumbledore paused, and then pressed on. "He is inextricably linked with the downfall of Voldemort. Without him, Hogwarts will fall." 

Sirius stared at him, his world jolting violently out of control. Hogwarts—fall? Impossible. And yet . . . he looked again at the desperate weariness, the sheer age, present on the Headmaster's face and knew it was true. He cleared his throat. 

"Dumbledore . . . things like this take time to heal. There's no chance he'll have sorted it out by then. It might even take months!" 

For a minute, Sirius thought he detected a dim reflection of the old twinkle in Dumbledore's eyes. 

"That, Mr. Black, is where you come in." 

*** 

The spell was simple enough; there were no actual incantations involved, just concentration. Dumbledore had cast a circle around Harry's bed with his wand, and Sirius settled himself within it, assuming a comfortable position, and beginning the process of relaxing himself. It took awhile; he was sorry but not surprised to feel his veins pulsing with anxiety, blood pounding in his ears, back muscles straining needlessly against the hard wooden backing of the chair. He felt the mouthful of potion that Dumbledore had instructed him to swallow roiling around in the pit of his stomach, but felt no direct effects from it. He kept himself utterly still, hands resting squarely on the chair's arms, feet planted firmly on the floor. And he thought of Harry. Harry as he had first seen him, sitting on top of his trunk in Little Whinging, looking sweaty and scared but determined. Harry angry, standing over him in the Shrieking Shack and radiating power as he accused Sirius of killing his parents. Harry concerned, vexed that Sirius was in Hogsmeade risking himself for Harry's safety. Harry, proud and happy in a letter, detailing his victory over the dragon. 

Slowly, the spell's trance took over his body. For a solid twenty minutes he lingered somewhere in between reality and the dream state, and then he felt his consciousness slipping. All awareness of his body in the hospital wing left him, and for a small eternity he floated peacefully in a colorless, thoughtless place without dimension. 

And then it changed. 

It happened so fast that Sirius barely had time to register the shift between nothingness and the feeling of a real, three dimensional world fully formed around him. All at once his body came back to him, but it wasn't the body he had left sitting carefully upright beside Harry's bed. The complete lack of color had faded to complete black, but it wasn't just a dark room. It felt _close_—he could feel the low ceiling and near walls pressing in on him from all sides. His knees were curled up to his chest in the tiny space. He felt rough wood cutting into him from below, and a strange, musty scent filled his nose. _The attic?_ He thought wildly, dog senses panicking as he sensed that he was trapped. _The cellar? Dumbledore mustn't have done the spell right. This isn't Harry's mind._

But the concept of Dumbledore having made a mistake was laughable, and he knew that by all accounts he must be exactly where he ought to be. Think, Sirius. He forced himself to listen beyond the rushing wind inside his mind, to be silent. From beside him, within an arm's length, he heard a small noise. _There's someone in here with me._ He strained with his ears, and tried to place the sound. 

At first he thought it was a rat, or another small creature fond of dark spaces. A sort of squeaking, followed by snuffling. No, it wasn't a rat, the sound was coming from too high up, level with his shoulder at least. The more he listened, the more he felt it was a human noise, that his first instincts had been correct. It reminded him of something, but what made such a— 

His heart stopped. 

He remembered the scene now, the one that had eluded him. It was one of his earliest memories, of himself at age five, one that Azkaban had been unable to steal away. He had stayed up late, crept out of his bedroom and nicked his father's wand. He had been a terror in the night, tapping everything he could with it, proud that he could do magic just like his parents. The next morning, he had swaggered into the breakfast room, eagerly awaiting praise for his talents, to find his mother sniffling and his father quietly enraged: with a tap from the careless wand he had destroyed their wedding pictures, every last one, with the one water charm that had pleased him the most that night. One look from his father had been enough to send him right back up the stairs and into his bedroom, where he had crouched in the low space between his bed and the wall, his lip trembling and his chest racked with spasms. He had fought so desperately to keep himself from crying, clamping his teeth shut on the sob that ached to release itself into the near silence of the room. A silence that was only broken by the tiny noises that escaped . . . 

Heartbeat returning, Sirius reached out a hand in the darkness. 

"Harry?" 

And there's the end of part two. No, this is not the end of the story, nor was the first part a stand-alone, as some of my reviewers seemed to think. ::shrug:: Keep on reading, and I'll do my best to keep on writing. 


	3. The Destroyer

_Spiral_

A/N: Look, a third part! This would be the first time anyone's ever seen a third part from me! Consider yourselves blessed. Or cursed, depending on how much you think this story sucks. I'd like to take this opportunity to personally thank my reviewers, as they gave me such joy by filling my inbox with review alerts. Thank you to vmr (twice!), Portia, jennylovesnick (there's more story, see!), kateydidnt, Jessi, Perminator (nice job with the Six Degrees of Severus Snape), Alistian Black, Kelzery, Artimis, angel, Shayla Black (I'm afraid I haven't got a mailing list just yet), soulseeker (I studied Wicca for several years before deciding it wasn't quite the path for me--but you're right, I should've noticed that was a bit un-Harry Potter), Pixey, Liz, Savannah (if this is the best fic you've seen so far, you've got a lot more reading to do!), Coqui, and Ruka-chan. Please keep reading, and reviewing, because it makes me feel loved. 

Disclaimer: All of the following characters, names, places and concepts are property of JK Rowling, much as that irks me. Several lines from this section were taken directly from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's (Philosopher's) Stone, as a means of flashback. 

*** 

_Part Three: The Destroyer_

The scenes changed rapidly; the world shifted without so much as a sound. As in dreams, there was no connection at all between one image and the next. The tiny room with the sobbing Harry disappeared, and Sirius started as he realized that Harry was now standing directly in front of him, not facing him, but looking up at the house before them. It was the Burrow, the whimsical Weasley family house with its thatched roof and its additions poking out in every direction. Something about the tint of the world around the two of them was off; the sky was too orange, the colors too muted. The Burrow had the strange, abandoned feeling of a house deserted before a tornado. 

Harry didn't seem to notice that Sirius was there. He walked forward, and reached out a pale hand to touch the plaster of the wall beside the door, where odd pairs of mismatched boots and a few gardening utensils lay. Before Harry's hand connected with the wall the plaster cracked, creating a shallow hole showing white beneath the cream-colored stucco. Cracks spread around the hole, spiderwebbing over the wall, and Harry moved his hand back down to his side slowly, expressionlessly, as if he had always know his touch could shatter. 

"Harry," said Sirius, trying a fatherly, concerned tone, but he had the eerie feeling that Harry couldn't see him, couldn't feel his presence at all. Instead, Harry was pushing his way into the house, the wooden door crumbling little bits of oak as his fingers met with it. He left the door standing open behind him, as if reluctant to come in contact with it again. Sirius stood for a moment in the sickly orange light of outdoors, staring at the black rectangle where Harry had disappeared, and then followed him inside. 

From the inside, the Burrow had an air of disaffected sadness. Walking through it was like walking through a graveyard of children's toys: joyful things that were lonely and fading as their owners found new games, relinquished games altogether, and moved away. There were black footprints on the floor, which Sirius at first thought were symbols to guide him, but on closer inspection realized that Harry's feet had burnt them into the wood and stone—sticky shapes that smelled acrid and looked like textured tar. 

Sirius followed them, trying not to feel sick when he stepped in one, and found Harry in the kitchen, where he stood staring at the worn kitchen table with the same vacant expression he had worn outside the house. Below him, the stone floor of the kitchen was turning black and bubbling up around his shoes, smoke rising from the tar-like substance. 

Suddenly, Harry's expression changed, or rather, he began to actually have an expression. With a look of bitter cheerfulness, he reached out a hand to graze the table top, and gave an odd-sounding, satisfied laugh when it splintered, its legs breaking as it heaved itself to the floor. All around them Sirius could hear faint groanings and crackings; the Burrow, which had seemed to be held together by magic alone for so long, was finally breaking apart. 

"You don't . . . this isn't . . . you're _not_," fumbled Sirius, his voice rising as the sounds of creaking timber and tumbling plaster filled the air. Harry gave no more indication than he had yet that he even knew Sirius was there. The pans and saucers were sliding off the walls as the entire house quaked, china and glass tinkling to the floor. From outside, Sirius heard an almighty crash that could only be one of the gables tumbling to the ground. He was pelted with bits of stone and coated with the chalk-like dust of the plaster, but Harry remained oddly untouched, seemingly inside a bubble of protection that not even a falling beam could penetrate. He only smirked, his eyes vacant and hard as the Weasley home came down in pieces around him. 

*** 

"Hey, Harry, how about a game of chess?" 

Sirius blinked. The orange-tinted rubble of the Burrow had disappeared. Instead, he was standing in the Gryffindor common room, bright with firelight and winter sunlight from two tower windows. Ron was sitting in one of the best chairs in front of the fire, his grin infectious and his hair flaming orange. On the low table before him was his chess set, the black and white players leering at each other from opposite ends of the board. 

"What, and lose again?" It was Harry, apparently responsive this time, coming down the boy's staircase in his pajamas, taking off his glasses to clean them on the edge of his top. The common room was uncharacteristically empty, and Sirius realized it must be the Christmas holidays. 

Ron was smiling his smug chess smile that Sirius had only seen once or twice, a grin of complete confidence that Ron rarely displayed. "You might win," he said generously. 

Harry laughed, a sound Sirius had become unaccustomed to. It was a genuine laugh that filled the room with its warmth, and Sirius cradled the sound, trying to memorize it if he should need it sometime in the future. Harry flung himself in the chair opposite Ron's and grinned. "You're on," he said. 

Harry's pieces were white, and he started the game, pushing a pawn forward two spaces with the look of sporting determination that fit his features so well. Sirius moved closer and settled into a nearby chair where he could view the match more easily. The things inside him that had frozen during the interlude in the Burrow were thawing cautiously. Was this just a happy, innocuous memory that Harry had of Ron? 

Both boys had quieted down and were staring intently at the board, Ron with the look of hushed concentration that he always wore when strategizing, Harry with his green eyes narrowed, glaring at his pieces as if determined to win by will alone. 

They were halfway through when Ron suddenly shouted, "Look, if you don't hurry up, he'll already have the Stone!" 

Sirius jumped, and then frowned. A total non sequitur—but neither Ron nor Harry acted as if there was anything at all strange about this outburst. Harry merely reached forward and moved his king up a space. Ron immediately pounced on the rook left unprotected. 

"That's chess!" he said irritably. "You've got to make some sacrifices!" 

"No," said Harry softly, his expression changing, his voice becoming desperate. Sirius had the impression of some huge merging, of something large and unpleasant bearing down upon the common room and the game and the memory. The chess board between them was shifting, pulsing, expanding, and Harry frantically tried to pull Ron away as the white queen reared up, tall and terrible and faceless in the white light of December. 

Ron was struggling with Harry, his words coming out with a slight echo as if from very far away. "I take one step forward and she'll take me—that leaves you free to checkmate the king, Harry!" 

But there was no king, thought Sirius suddenly, who sat rooted to the spot. Just a queen, made of blank stone, holding a deadly scepter and waiting with a ghastly patience. 

"Don't," Ron snarled, pushing Harry aside, "Don't—hang—around—once you've—won—" 

With one final shove Harry fell to the floor, panting, his glasses lost. Ron stepped over him, looking determined and triumphant, and the white queen—Harry's piece—held up a marble arm to strike him— 

—to strike him . . . 

—to strike him . . . 

-—to strike him . . . 


End file.
